


Trust Goes Both Ways

by Cupcakemolotov



Series: melody of stardust [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Jyn watches Cassian, battle buddies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 00:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9098203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cupcakemolotov/pseuds/Cupcakemolotov
Summary: There is a lull before every storm.





	

It wasn't until she stood alone with her fingers curled tightly around her mother’s necklace, that Jyn realized the angry knot that lived in her chest was gone. Standing on a rebel base in the shadows of X-Wings, her clothes sticky and sweat stained, hair a tangle of knots she felt as close to peace as she could remember. Instead of the exhaustion and hollowed feeling in her gut she'd felt since they'd left Eadu behind, for the first time since she'd been abandoned at sixteen, she felt steady. Anchored.

_Welcome home._

Her eyes sought Cassian out, and for a moment, she allowed herself to watch. To direct the jittery feeling in her veins, the endless drive to move and to do at him, instead. He was listening to Bodhi ramble, head tilted to the side as he nodded. The calculation she'd seen the morning she'd been brought before Mon Mothma was the same, the lean lines of his body steady as he replied, each motion and gesture deliberate. Bodhi was uncertain bravery, eyes wide and shoulders tense. 

Cassian…

As he finished speaking, as if he could feel her gaze, his eyes lifted to hers.

 _This_ was different.

The way he absorbed her with dark eyes had nothing to do with distrust and wariness, the way his gaze traveled her face and shoulders, as if he could read everything he needed to know from the set of her jaw. As if her eyes and mouth gave away all her secrets. This shift she hadn't seen coming now sat heavily between them. His words as they argued on their return from Eadu had rattled something loose in her chest, his quirked smile and soft words moments before had knocked it completely loose.

She was scrambling, but it was a new sort of distortion. Not one of abandonment, but one of finding. Perhaps she wasn't anchored, merely tethered, but it was a welcome weight.

It was nothing she understood.

Cassian had been nothing but shifting sands beneath her feet when they'd arrived at Jedha. Angry, distrustful, the blaster hadn't been so much as a peace offering but a wary, and calculated move. But something had changed between them as they'd fought the Storm Troopers, had changed again when Cassian had pulled her from the crumbling ruins. And again, as they raged against each other, words sharp and terrible at each other's throats, her father's death a blade between them.

But as Cassian moved towards her, gaze still locked on hers, her lungs expanded fully with each breath and it hurt. The lull between them was one that would not last. For all that she wanted this, had raged and cursed and fought for the mission that now stood before her, Jyn wasn't a fool. Without the Council’s support, Scariff was likely doomed. But they had to try.

“Bodhi says we pull out in twenty minutes,” Cassian said once he was close enough, voice a low murmur as people bustled about. No one paid them much mind, the Intelligence Officer and a girl. To most, they appeared to be two people having a simple conversation, and Jyn wondered if they'd ever have the chance for that. Something easy, not shrouded with secrets and agendas, colored by political motivations that were not entirely their own.

“Good,” Jyn replied instead, eyes steady against his. “It gives them less time to stop us.”

Cassian dipped his chin slightly, a silent agreement, before he glanced away, the edges of his mouth tightening. Still he stood silently with her in this unexpected lull for long moments. She wondered what he was thinking, wasn't certain she should ask. Whatever thread had pulled tight between them could be so easily snapped, and Jyn wasn't one for promises.

Saw had been right, in that regard. Connections were dangerous, but she'd realized that a cause wasn't enough. Political agendas aside, it wasn't her hatred of the empire that had put her here, but the once buried love for her father. People made a rebellion, and it was people that drove hope forward.

Maybe someday she'd have the chance to tell Cassian that.

“Regretting your choice?” Jyn asked finally, head tilting to match his. Cassian’s gaze jerked to hers, eyes unguarded in their surprise, then determination. The tightening around his eyes, the stubborn set of his mouth, spoke louder than any words he might choose.

Perhaps she wasn't the only one who was easy to read anymore.

"No,” he replied easily, tone a stark contrast to his eyes. “The moment I learned of a possible planet killer, I knew how this might go. I'm not going anywhere, Jyn.”

There was something there, a lingering promise that turned her pulse staccato in her chest. His gaze never wavered, and she finally nodded. Gaze moving over his shoulder, she caught Bodhi’s uneasy gaze, watched her friend's shoulders pull straight as he nodded.

Time then.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped beside Cassian, and stilled as fingers curved along her wrist.

“Jyn.”

She glanced up, the inches between them doing nothing to dull the intensity of Cassian’s eyes, the low rasp of his voice against her nerves.

“I’m here.”

A thousand unsaid words, that they might never get to speak. Jyn twisted her hand, caught his fingers tightly between her own. For a single moment, she let herself explore the tangled mess his words had left behind in her chest. “Me too.”

Stepping away, and knowing he'd follow, Jyn carefully tucked one parent's legacy away and headed to another.

 

 


End file.
